Project Title: Automatic Abbreviation Generation
Name: Gregg Stum, MS; Patrick Demasco MS; Kathleen McCoy, PhD
Address: Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories University of
Delaware/ A.I duPont Institute PO Box 269 Wilmington, DE 19899
Telephone: (302) 651-6830
Sponsor: National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research,
U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW, Washington, DC
20202, Director: William Graves, Ed.D.
Nemours Foundation A.I. duPont Institute PO Box 269 Wilmington, DE
19899 Research Director: Charles Hartzell, Ph.D.
References: Stum, G. M. (1991). Automatic Abbreviation
Generation. Technical Report 92-01. Dept. of Computer and Information
Sciences, University of Delaware.
Stum, G. M., Demasco, P. W., and McCoy, K. F. (1991). Automatic
Abbreviation Generation. Proceedings of the RESNA 14th Annual
Conference (Kansas City, MO). Washington, D.C.: RESNA PRESS. 97 - 99.
Key Words: Abbreviation Expansion, Augmentative and Alternative
Communication
Category: Independent Living Aids - Communication Methods and Systems
Purpose
The goal of this project is to increase the communication rate of
physically disabled individuals via abbreviation expansion. Currently,
abbreviation expansion systems require the assignment of a unique
abbreviation to each word that its user abbreviates. The user must
then memorize all of these assignments. Flexible Abbreviation
Expansion, one application of Automatic Abbreviation Generation, seeks
to eliminate these requirements. In this approach the expansion system
recognizes any well-formed abbreviation for a word, eliminating the
need to define and memorize specific abbreviation assignments.
Progress
Automatic Abbreviation Generation is demonstrated with a prototype
Flexible Abbreviation Expansion system implemented in C++. The
prototype distinguishes among 9 different rules that it uses to
categorize the possible expansions of an abbreviation. It has been
tested on vocabularies of up to 1300 words. It is source-code portable
between both Unix and DOS, and compiles under a variety of distinct
compilers. The prototype generates all of the abbreviation information
it requires and stores this in memory. Under Unix, it consumes as much
memory as it needs. Under DOS, it is sensitive to the amount of
available memory and restricts its generation accordingly.
Methodology
The expansion system reads the vocabulary that the user wishes to
abbreviate, generates a table comprising all of the abbreviations that
it expects to see from the user for each word in the vocabulary, and
identifies the abbreviation rules that each of the abbreviations
represent with respect to their word. The user is then free to enter
any well-formed abbreviation for the intended word. The system looks
up this abbreviation in the table of anticipated abbreviations and
categorizes the possible expansions according to the rule that the
abbreviation represents. For example, the abbreviation `ab' is a
truncation for the words `absent', `abundant', and `abbreviation', and
is a strict-contraction for the word `aplomb'. The list of words is
then ordered according to preferences based on features of the word
(e.g. its associated rule). The most likely expansion is taken as the
word with the highest preference.
While of significant importance, the user interface is considered
separate from the expansion system. That is, the expansion system
provides all of the possible expansions for an abbreviation, and the
user interface determines how to report these to the user. This allows
a wide variety of designs that can be tailored to any particular
user. One possibility is for the interface to simply replace the
abbreviation with the most preferred expansion. The user would then
press a special key to get the next most preferred
expansion. Another possible design is for the interface to present a
list of the most preferred expansions, from which the user directly
selects the one intended. A third possibility is a mix of the two,
where the expander replaces the abbreviation with the most preferred
expansion, and presents a list of expansions if the user rejects it.
Results
The prototype demonstrates that an abbreviation expansion system can
recognize well-formed abbreviations of words. This project is being
continued by GMS Systems with a Small Business Innovation Research
Grant from the Department of Education. The objective of this grant is
to demonstrate the feasibility of using Flexible Abbreviation
Expansion to enhance job opportunities. The grant supports the
development of a more practical implementation that rates the possible
expansions by the user 's preferences, bases its information in a file
rather than memory, and incorporates a user-interface that can support
a wide variety of configurations such as those described
above. Ultimately the information used by the Expander is seen to be
included in a CD-ROM language module having an on-line dictionary or
encyclopedia.